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The First Meeting
Lieutenant Frederic Henry's friend Rinaldi (a doctor) wanted him to go with him to visit Catherine Barkley. She is an English nurse's aid at a nearby British hospital. Rinaldi has a love interest in her and he takes Henry (an American ambulance driver for the Italians) with him one time to see her. Henry and Catherine seemed to hit it off right away. She was very eager to be in a relationship because a man who was going to marry her died in the war the previous year. -
Proclaimed Love
By this time, they had met more than once and Miss Barkley asked Henry if he loved her. He told her that he did. She said that she loved him too. Henry didn't really love her, but he said that it was like a game. "This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes. Nobody had mentioned what the stakes were. It was all right with me." She soon realized that he didn't mean it. -
Saint Anthony
Saint Anthony necklaceWhen Henry had to leave Catherine to go to a show up above Plava, she gave him her Saint Anthony necklace and she told him that it would take care of him. He was just going to put it in his pocket, but someone told him it was better to wear it. He later lost it after he was wounded. -
Injured!
When Henry was eating in a tunnel, there was a sudden blast. He thought that he had died. However, he suddenly awoke and saw that Passini was killed. Henry then realized that his legs were badly injured. He was rescued and they told him that it was all caused by a trench mortar shell. They treated him at the site and took him to a hospital. They wanted to ship him to Milan, where he could be better cared for. -
Milan
There was a kind nurse that took good care of him at the hospital in Milan. Catherine arrived shortly, and some doctors came to look at him. They told him it would take over 6 months before they could opperate on his legs. He didn't want to wait that long, so another doctor named Valentini came to look at him. This doctor said he would operate on him the very next day. -
A Summer of Fun
Henry quickly begsn to recover. While he did, Catherine and him had a great time that summer and they spent a lot of time together. From the very first day that Miss Barkley arrived at the hospital, they had told each other that they were married. They did not actually get married because if they did, Catherine would get sent home until after the war. They had a great time, but Henry knew that he would have to go back to the front soon. -
Back on the Front
Henry was now back on the front and he was re-united with Rinaldi. Before he left, Catherine had told him that she was going to have a baby. He was very worried about her but he continued on with his work. Henry was sent with cars carrying hospital equipment to different places. -
Stuck
One day the ambulance drivers were trying to travel to Udine when one of the cars got stuck. It was muddy and with the spinning wheels it got deeper and deeper. They were going to try and dig out in front of the wheels. Two of the sergeants started to leave and they wouldn't come back. Henry started shooting at them and shot one of them but he couldn't get the other one. Piani finished off the injured sergeant but the other man got away however, they continued on their journey. -
Germans
They later spotted Germans so they tried to avoid being seen and they crept along quietly. Unexpectedly some shots were fired and Aymo got killed. Bonello left the men because he said he wanted to be a prisoner even though they had made it through rather safely. -
Trouble
They came across some officers that started taking some of the men, including Henry. They said that they were battle police. The officers thought that they were Germans, in Italian uniforms. They started to question and then shoot the men. Henry managed to run away and he hid in the river. He came to an island and he got onto the shore. He walked to a railroad and he snuck onto it. He got off the train at Milan and he learned that Catherine had gone to Stresa. So he got on a train to go there. -
Fleeing to Switzerland
Henry found Cathrine and they were very happy until one night when a barman warned Henry that police were going to come and arrest him in the morning. Henry and Catherine quickly left for Switzerland in a small boat. They were eating in Switzerland when they got arrested and were asked a bunch of questions. They were released and then they went to Montreux. -
Settling down
Henry and Catherine settled into a brown wooden house on the side of a mountain. The people there were very kind and they served them breakfast. Henry and Catherine liked to look out across the lake and at the mountains on the French side. The mountains were beautiful with snow on the tops and they often took walks beside the lake and observed all of the wildlife. They knew very few people in the city but they had a fine time. -
Looking back
Catherine refused to get married while she was obviously going to have a baby, so they decided to wait until after. Henry often found himself thinking about the front and all of the people that he knew there. He wondered how Rinaldi was doing. He told himself to stop thinking about the war and to quit his worrying. -
A Month Away
They were very happy with their lives and it was about a month until the baby was to be born. They decided to go to Lausanne because there was a hospital there. They took a train to the big city and started to shop for baby things. The weeks went by and they spent a lot of time together taking walks and carriage rides. "We knew the baby was very close now and it gave us both a feeling as though something were hurrying us and we could not lose any time together." -
The Baby is Coming!
One morning Catherine started having pains and they headed to the hospital. She was in labor for a long time and the doctor said that things weren't going right. He said that he had to operate. The baby died and Catherine was exhausted. -
Gone Forever
All that Henry cared about was Catherine. She got a hemorrhage that was very dangerous. She told Henry that she was going to die, but she wasn't afraid. She was very sad to leave him alone. "Don't worry, darling, I'm not a bit afraid." She died while she was unconscious. He didn't know what to do. So, he just walked back to the hotel in the rain.
